Information-Powered Engines

Sinopse

This book presents the experimental development of an information-powered engine inspired by the famous thought experiment, Maxwell's demon, to understand its potential to produce energy for practical purposes. The development of an engine based on Maxwell's demon wasnbsp;for a long timenbsp;inconceivable, but technologicalnbsp;advancesnbsp;have led to novel investigations into theoretical and practical applications.nbsp; The built information engine consists of a micron-sized glass bead trapped in a tightly focused laser beam. It rectifies the bead's Brownian motion by controlling the laser's position and generates a unidirectional motion against gravity without doing any work, thus converting thermal heat into stored gravitational potential energy. A theoretical model based on a spring-mass system describes the engine'snbsp;dynamics andnbsp;was then used to find optimum parameters to improve the engine's performance.nbsp;Experimentally implementing these optimization strategies led to engine output powers comparable to those measured in biological motors.nbsp; This book also highlights performance improvements made in the presence of measurement noise and presents important guiding principles to design information engines to operate in non-equilibrium environments. By focusing on practical applications, the book overall aims to broaden the scope ofnbsp;information-engine investigations.nbsp;